The Guardian

Britain’s view on… Sir Clive Sinclair, who died last week

The Telegraph ‘Self-proclaimed genius’

“For his own generation, he’s better known for being, frankly, a master of public relations smoke and mirrors as much as the poker-playing, pole dancermarrying, marathon-running, poetry-loving Renaissance man, the self-proclaimed genius and chairman of Mensa, the club for the super-intelligent. We should rightly celebrate Sir Clive as an eccentric, a character and a man who, albeit without meaning to, revolutionised people’s lives. But a Jobs or a Gates, he was not” Jonathan Margolis

The Register ‘Man before his time?’

“Was he a man before his time? It is easy to think so. The C5, mocked back in the 1980s, might have been a shoo-in these days… Clive’s later invention of a portable TV was also a flop, but today everyone carries a device capable of receiving… live audio-visual broadcasts.” Gareth Corfield

Coventry Telegraph ‘Innovative’

“He set up Sir Clive Sinclair’s Electric Vehicles LTD in Coventry… and went about designing his innovative product at the University of Warwick’s Science Park. The idea of a small electric vehicle sounds golden, but… the end product simply didn’t capture imaginations.” Danny Thompson

The Guardian ‘Brought it home’

“For families all over Britain, Clive Sinclair brought computers home. The hobbyist computer market…was not as welldeveloped and required some engineering expertise… The ZX81, you could buy in Boots or WH Smiths or from the Argos catalogue.” Keith Stuart

Comment & Analysis

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2021-09-19T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-19T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://guardian.pressreader.com/article/282359747846309

Guardian/Observer